Anyone subscribe to Vanity Fair?

[whometense]

Just got the new issue yesterday - BIG article about the movie Loose Change (am I the last person on the web to not know about this film?)

http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/currentissue/

It's not officially online, but you can read it here, on this Libertarian website: http://www.libertyforum.org/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=news_news&Number=294755813

The author, Nancy Jo Sales, has her own blog here: http://nancyjosales.com/blog/


From the July issue:

92 | THE WAR THEY WANTED, THE LIES THEY NEEDED Who forged the Niger documents that helped justify the Iraq invasion? Plunging into a world of black propaganda, Craig Unger finds evidence of a deliberate disinformation campaign linking Italian spies, neoconservative hawks, and the White House. Read the article.

I truly think my head may explode. If anyone has read this article, or has seen the film (you can watch it online, but I haven't seen it yet - I'm afraid if I do I may never sleep again.

As an added note, I'm currently reading Ron Suskind's The One Percent Doctrine, which only confirms my darkest imaginings about Darth Cheney, the evil overlord.

[globalvillage]

1. That's some scary stuff.

I skimmed through the article, I'll have to read it later. There's a lot beneath the surface, isn't there?
I'm going to pick up Suskind's book. It sounds fascinating.

[whometense]

2. It's terrifying, but unsurprising.

I've found that it reinforces my own thoughts that I'd previously dismissed as over-the-top paranoid.

The Loose Change website also has a bunch of stuff on the London train bombings, which they tie into the same plot.

One of the things I worry about is what they have planned for when citizen anger reaches the point where it obliterates the fear they've so carefully cultivated. Then what? We joke about the convenient timing of those Osama tapes, but really - what is the deal with that? It's one of those cases where paranoid fantasies seem to make more sense than reality...

[ProSense]

3. Very interesting stuff!

What I always found strange about the London bombings is that Rudy Giuliani was in the area when it occurred.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,22989-1685159,00.html

[globalvillage]

4. I have resigned myself to the belief

that it's all much more sinister than I can possibly imagine. When all is eventually known, I doubt I'll be surprised. It's coming out bit by bit, but will it be too late? Look at the ME. N Korea. Look at the division here in the US. I think, I BELIEVE this is the bush* plan, and all is going just swimmingly. They don't want to build alliances, they just want an excuse to bomb shit and kill people. Why, though? What's the end game? Is it a race to see if they can destroy everything before global warming does? Hey, then they'll be right and Gore will have been proven wrong. Just let the world turn to shit now and the climate crisis won't matter.
Look at freaking bush*, riding around in a golf cart with pooty poot while the world decends into chaos. And even with that, he's pissing off the G8 leaders. Fucking asshole. Where is the God damned diplomacy??? There's no diplomacy, no accountability, no leadership. We demand that soverign countries do our bidding, but don't make any attempt at compromise. Not only do we not listen to anyone, we won't even talk to them. We just do shit. It's the bush* "my way or the highway" plan. They we blow up the fucking highway. All because he can't admit to making a mistake. Ever. Then again, I don't think he believes he's ever made one.
Basically, IMO, we're screwed unless we can take back the Congress and the WH before the whole thing blows up.
As for the general public, the media will deflect. Most won't ever have much of a clue except that 'something funny' was going on. Until they look back at what happened. Then they'll wonder why they didn't see it coming. Then they'll blame Clinton. God damned bought and paid for media. I'm just not sure which of them are stupid and which are complicit.
Frightening world we live in. It's the secrecy that makes it that way more than anything.
Tell the Truth. The Senator keeps telling us that's #1.
As usual, he's right. Will anyone hear him, though?
These are the things that really piss me off.
Excuse the rant, it's looking a bit hopeless right now to me, and I know it's not. There's still hope and that's why we're here. Just means we have to work that much harder.

[whometense]

6. Rant on.

I've needed to take increasingly extended vacations from the news lately in order to stay somewhat sane.

And I feel very much the same way you do.

The thing is, with this administration's credibility at absolute zero, they are only adding to the general paranoia. I mean, a person would have to be nuts to believe anything they say. So you're forced to look behind every position to try and figure out what's really going on.

I heard a bit of Thom Hartmann interviewing Bernie Sanders this morning on AAR, and they were discussing the media. It's really what scares me the most - the slide into fascism, as it were, through media consolidation and intimidation. That whole "kill Bill Keller" thing a few weeks ago, and the flap over the article on Cheney and Rumsfelds' homes - just has terrifying implications. I hope the general public is understanding what the stakes are here. They could not be higher.

[ProSense]

7. This isn't about 9/11, but the Mideast.

It shows that people are on to Bush, and may realize the perilous positions that have resulted from his actions or inaction.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=1646330&mesg_id=1646330

[karynnj]

8. I'm with you and confused, thinking things I've never thought before

The confusing thing is motivation. The "mistakes" in Iraq - most of which were things that Kerry (and others) correctly spoke out against at the time they were happening - were likely not mistakes. Not everyone in the Bush administration cold be that dumb, though they could be that dishonest.

In the last year, the administration has actually said that the war was for regime change and to foster a better climate in the middle east. They say it in a matter of fact way implying that if you object, you supported Saddam and all his evil practices. Yet, they lied about WMD and the connection to 911 because they knew that the country would not support a war for those reasons and because stating them honestly would lead to the rest of the world objecting to a policy that violates international law. Now that it's in the past, they count on our inability to accept that our government could do things that are inherently wrong.

I think the possibility of this acceptance in retrospect of reasons they would have rejected in the past, may be why Kerry still brings up the whole mess of why and how we got into Iraq. If people don't internalize that they were lied to by their government, they won't be vigilent and will continue to accept lies. Also, many people have difficulty accepting that a war they supported was wrong and gives them new reason to believe. If instead, they accept that their support was obtained by lies, they are absolved and the guilt sticks only to those who knowingly supported this.

Kerry's energy speech goes even further than his Iraq speechs, where he strongly advocates for inventing our way out of the fact that an oil based economy challanges our ability to have the standard of life we are accustomed to while living our values internationally. Kerry is optimistic that our ingenuity can let us have both.

A key question is what if we have to choose. Jimmy Carter's calls to conserve by turning down the thermostat and wearing sweaters, increasing the fuel efficiency of cars, etc were viewed as depressing and were belittled by Ronald Reagan. Obviously, Carter not Reagan was right, but the American populace responded to Reagan's adolesent view that America deserves what it wants.

The stories that Cheney had maps of Iraq's oil reserves as part of his energy task force - that we still know little about - are scary. One person I know who, without using the word believes in PNAC, mentioned that part of the danger posed by Saddam was that Iraq sits on the second largest oil reserves in the world. I think part of his concern was that this put Saddam in the position to hold the industrialized world hostage some time in the future by playing with the oil supply. Although the far LW overstates it by saying we want to steal the oil, it is likely that part of plan and the reason for permanent bases and the largest embassy ever is that we want to regulate and insure that the oil output won't be suddenly interrupted.

I wonder what the reaction of the American people would be if it were explained that we needed to control our "ME empire" to control the availability of oil that feeds our economy. How many would accept the corrupting values of controlling an empire rather than allow their standard of living to be downgraded?

On the domestic side, they are not telling us the truth either. Last week, Krugman had a column showing that the healthy 4%+ growth in 2004 went almost entirely to just the very very top of the economic pyramid - even the upper middle class had very little gain. The gains for the very top upper class were huge. In the face of this, their policy has been to favor the rich even more.

The combination of resources becoming scarcer and the relative wealth of the top and bottom of society becoming greater is scary. With huge wealth, the top part of society will feel no pressure to decrease their usage, even as decreased supply raises prices.

[ProSense]

9. Add to that the

corruption:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2725665&mesg_id=2725665


The situation looks grim, but I'm banking on a reversal of GOP fortunes:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2726633&mesg_id=2726633


November makes me nervous! Democrats have to take back Congress.

[emulatorloo]

5. I read THE WAR THEY WANTED, THE LIES THEY NEEDED at the doctor's office

on Friday. It is pretty chilling. . .well worth reading.